Interdependence Day and Radical Hospitality

July 4, 2019 with our peonies and beloved people.

On July 4, whether you live on a small island off the coast of Maine/Wabanaki Territory as I do or not, wouldn't it be nice if we all were reflecting on and celebrating radical hospitality?!

The radical hospitality of kinship -- which by definition goes beyond blood, as I know well from my own experience as both a queer and an adopted person -- is core to the teachings of Jesus in my faith tradition. In both my tradition and experience, we are ALL adopted by god and, if we are lucky, by each other.

Whether or not we open our hearts to each other to live within this tradition is another story. It does too often seem as if there are a lot of Sunday church goers and Bible thumpers out there who extend hospitality only within their own four walls.

Why consider radical hospitality, and kinship that extends beyond blood, on the 4th of July?

We cannot celebrate independence without celebrating inter-dependence. Mutuality. We are all family.

Yes, love your family -- within the context we are ALL family (who dance together!).

We are raised in a culture of mistakes. Of celebrating independence, and our victories over stolen lands. This White colonialism we call "American" is seeped like blood into this stolen earth. Land that was once stewarded sustainably for thousands of years and has now been pillaged.

This same culture wants us to believe that "charity" is radical hospitality.

It is not.

Radical hospitality is not about any one of us making charitable donations to ease our guilt over harboring more than our share of the earth's resources. It is not about hosting dinner parties and galas. Most importantly, it is not about seeing others as in need of your largesse.

Radical hospitality is about mutuality. We all stand side by side on this earth together. Those who are without homes or family or food or services or health or mental health and those who have all of this and more -- so they can travel. Be tourists. Have second homes.

We are all family. Everyone must be welcomed, everyone cared for. Not just into our communities and homes. But into our hearts.

When we allow and welcome people and ideas who are strange and other and even scary to us into our hearts, we begin to transform ourselves and our own corner of the world. Could a "hospitality of the heart" -- one that moves beyond judgement, sarcasm, and meanness -- change our communities and our world? I believe so. It is why gathering together for a performance -- whether theater or church -- is so crucial to who we are as humans. In those spaces, together, we create the opportunities for these transformations of the heart. We prepare our hearts. We open them to lives and stories we might not otherwise encounter or welcome in our isolation.

2013: driving the theater float, with beloved
actors, in the local July 4 parade.

For those of us who do live in towns flooded by tourists and visitors at this time of year, radical hospitality can be particularly challenging right now! Some notes to our visitors, in addition to myself: remember you are privileged to be here, and find some humility in that privilege. For me, personally, the entitlement that often accompanies privilege can be the characteristic in strangers most difficult for me (or my community) to welcome. You are standing beside us, not above us. And none of us is entitled to more than any other.

Interdependence. Mutuality. Radical Hospitality. Wishing all a July 4th filled with these things.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning is a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
[S]he may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

-Rumi

Read more about radical hospitality through the lens of Black queer kinship and Marlon Riggs' 1989 film, Tongues Untied.